He turned his old flat gray eyes over to me real slow, his eyes as gray as his flattop, smoking one Camel after another on that old Army cot twenty years after the doctors told him lung cancer had killed him, a glass of whiskey nearby, Humphrey Bogart on the TV. The Caine Mutiny. One of his favorites. Laying there in his long underwear without a shave in a week, indomitable, old boxer, warrior, lover, father.

I told him somebody’d showed his dick to my wife.

He wanted to know how big a dick it was.

I told him she said it was just a small one. He paused. We watched Humphrey measure out some sand with a spoon. I felt almost out of control.

Then he looked back around to me, swung his old flat gray eyes up there on my face and said, Son, a little dick’s sorta like a Volkswagen. It’s all right around the house but you don’t want to get out on the road with it. I didn’t know what to say. He told me to bring him some whiskey sometime. I left soon after.

I’d quit my job after sixteen years and drawn that state retirement money out, way over ten thousand dollars. Back in those days I thought that money would last forever. I was just laying around the house drinking beer, poking Dorothea soon as she walked in the door. I did the same thing the guy at the Dumpsters did, only behind closed doors. I had a woman who looked good, who liked to wear a garter belt and black stockings and keep the light on.

But that insult to her wore on me. I’d get in the truck to ride around and I’d get to thinking about it. I’d get to thinking about the humiliation she felt when that guy did that. I even called the sheriff’s department one day and reported it, and talked to a deputy about it. They knew who it was, and I like to fell over. They knew his name. They told me his name. I said Well, if this sick son of a bitch is running around out here jerking his pants down in front of people, why in the hell don’t y’all do something about it? They said he was harmless, that he’d already been arrested six times for doing it, twice in front of Kroger’s uptown when ladies tried to load up their groceries. I said, You think a son of a bitch like that is harmless? They said, Believe me, he’s harmless. They said, Believe me, there’s a lot worse than that going on that you don’t know nothing about. They said, If you did know what all was going on, you wouldn’t sleep at night.